Listen to the locals (From York Press)

Listen to the locals

11:09am Tuesday 12th March 2013 in Letters By Reader's letter

I READ with interest Mark Stead’s article on the Peel Corporation’s plans to turn the North Selby Mine Site into an anaerobic digestion plant and the selling of power to the National Grid rather than the returning of the site to agricultural use as originally agreed when planning for a mine was granted (The Press, March 7).

So often major industrial empires ride roughshod over the wishes of the local communities and this is no exception. Peel was told at its public information meetings that this plant was unacceptable – so did they listen?

They were impervious to the complaint of permanent orange light over Escrick from the methane burning stack; unimpressed by the worries of wind-borne smells drifting over Wheldrake and unimpressed by the cries about the extra 300 vehicle passes per day on the already overcrowded single carriageway A19 past Deighton.

It will soon be time for our city planning committee to take account of the views of the people who elected them by refusing this application. Industrial giants don’t get a vote – the man in the street does.

Coun George Barton, Conservative, Wheldrake ward, City of York Council.